No one told her it would be like this. Painful, messy and exhausting. Hurts at first, when the tip plunges in. Feels cold. She screams. It drives in deeper. She resists, draws back, but sensation floods her nerves and she can not control herself. She loosens. The initial pain fades for a moment, she looks into his steel guise and cannot help but think, "this is, in a twisted way, romantic." She barely notices the warm, wet blood splashing forth from her. This is the first time she has experienced this act. To be in this moment of ecstasy on the boundary of life and death forever; to her, it would be heaven.

Then the angel-masked warrior withdraws the spear from her abdomen and cleans it with a rag. His is the mask of a high-ranking officer, a man who has subjugated many small nations like hers. The beautiful and stoic metal mask that covers his face is spotted with blood.

The ground beneath her is dirt hardened by the tens of thousands of feet that marched, charged and eventually fled on its surface. The early morning sun stabs at her squinting eyes as if to mock her. The overpowering odor of her blood forces its way into her nostrils. It is so cold that she can not move her fingers. And a satisfied voice breaks the silence.

"Finally, she falls." The voice of a foreign general ordered to conquer her lands. An angel. A tool of a distant enemy. The man who drives a spear through the belly of her country, and through her body. She will not forget this man.

Since she is about to die, dignity is of no importance. She has nothing left to lose. She pleads, "No, wait, please..."

Her executioner and his men laugh at her pathetic plea. They begin to walk away.

She will not accept this fate. She is young and is not ready to die. She tries to stand, but her legs are stone. Not ever her toes obey. All she can do is speak.

She tries again and addresses her killer, "I'm begging you, please, don't end me like this."

The angel pauses and turns to say, "A death like this is too noble for a lowly barbarian woman like you. Sully it no longer with your pitiable begging and die."

Self-pity turns to anger. She spits a cocktail of blood and bile and she wails, "At least we lowly barbarians don't kill unarmed women!"

Those words make the general pause for a second, but no longer. Speaking matter-of-factly, as if from a set of prepared notes, he gives a short speech: "If we're to subjugate these lands, we must break their will. We acknowledge no royalty, no god other than our Emperor. All other claims to divinity are false; evil attempts at corrupting the innocent. You must die so your people can be liberated from your primitive monarchy. With you alive, they're all too happy eating your shit and drinking your piss as holy medicine. They live barefoot in ignorant bliss with you on the throne. You must die so we can save your people. You can die peacefully knowing they're in good hands now." He and his men are satisfied with his answer and begin walking away.

Do you really believe that rhetoric? You dare justify my murder with cheap words? She realizes that she cannot move her lips any longer. Her plea never reaches her lips, much less her enemy's ears. Her life fades away. Her eyelids begin to weigh heavily.

---------------------------------------------------

I'm having trouble writing anything else after that. This is supposed to be the first of many deaths for this character, who will turn out to be a lich. I want to describe the process of transmigration, and how she will get denied entry into the afterlife, but I'm having trouble imagining something cooler than the typical "pearly gates" that we imagine in Christendom. I want to write about a cooler afterlife than that. Any ideas? Suggest some mythologies to me.